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Holy buns and bologna. I’m in serious trouble here.
I’ve never been in love before. Not. Once. I wouldn’t know the first thing about faking it.
And apparently, I now need a bag of rice for my phone.
At least there’s one positive thing about accidentally kissing one of my employees. She should be easy enough to find. Maybe. I really, really hope so anyway.
CHAPTER 3
Emily
Holy crap, what is Julie Louise Paris doing on my doorstep at nine on a Sunday morning? What is she doing on my doorstep at all?
I know it’s her. Even if the bright pink hair didn’t give her away, her lovely floral blouse, white slacks, and designer shoes and handbag would. She looks like a walking fashion show. Tall, statuesque, and lovely, even in her older age. She looks less like someone’s grandmother and far more like a businesswoman intent on squashing something. Or rather, someone. Namely me.
“Urg!” I squeak. I snap my mouth shut, and my hand trembles on the door. “Um…” Apparently, that’s the extent of any intelligent conversation for the moment.
One of her pink arches artfully, and those liquid green eyes of hers—the color of moss—stare right through me. “May I come in?”
“I…why?” I sound like a mouse who just got caught in a trap. Not a pretty picture. Neither is my old fluffy purple housecoat or the tatty t-shirt and shorts I have on underneath.
“You have to know why. You’ve seen the magazines, I’m sure.”
“What?” I squeak, my mind racing to try and understand what she means. What magazines?
“Come now, dear. It happened on Friday, and it’s been two days. You can play coy with everyone else, but you should know one thing about me. Shooting straight is the only way to talk to Julie Louise Paris.”
Holy crap, did she just talk about herself in third person? I realize I’m in serious trouble here because I don’t know anything about magazines, but I do know what happened on Friday. I know I fled the scene, called our receptionist from down the block to say I’d suddenly been overwhelmed by some kind of barfing sickness and that I wouldn’t be in until Monday morning. I spent Friday afternoon and also all of Saturday hunkered down, wondering how the heck I was going to fix my current predicament. My kissdicament.
AssholeByrondickingsomeoneonmykitchentabledicament.
“There…there’s magazines? What kind of magazines?”
“Gossip kinds. My grandson is quite famous with them, and they follow him around like flies on a stench. What I want to know is if you kissed him or if he kissed you.”
“I…I…I…” I drop my gaze to the ground while my heart beats so hard that the knocking against my ribs causes terrible ripples to vibrate up into my throat and close it off. Magazines? How could this get any worse? “I…I…m-might have kissed him.”
Julie Louise Paris huffs. “This isn’t a conversation I want to have outside on your wonderful doorstep. Invite me in for coffee.”
“I…uh…alright.” I dart my eyes down the street like we’re doing something illegal here—a shady deal of some sort.
Julie Louise Paris walks through the door like a queen. Though I suppose she is—a queen of the fashion world. It’s crazy to meet her in person. She doesn’t seem real. It’s like she sent a clone or robot AI to trick me or perhaps murder me and hide my body downstairs where no one will ever find it. A robot could dig through concrete, pour fresh concrete, and weave a rug to cover up the spot. I’m sure of it. I shouldn’t underestimate the power of technology.
I don’t know what’s worse. Thinking about a Julie Louise Paris murderous robot or finding the real Julie Louise Paris in my house, all the way from some far-flung corner of the world, here to talk to me inside my house about her grandson.
I want to break down and start bemoaning out loud the deplorable decision I made, the terrible timing, and how it somehow ended up in trashy magazines, causing Julie Louise Paris to be here now to either murder, fire, or buy me. However, all I can do is curse Byron under my breath.
I curse again when I realize I’ve walked into the kitchen. I stare at the table as Julie Louise Paris walks over, the picture of Byron with that hussy flashing before my eyes again. “No!” I blurt frantically as she pulls out a chair. “Not there!”
She backs up a step and stares at the table like there’s a viper hidden underneath. With my face flaming red, I switch on the coffee pot, which I had ready before the knock on my door, and quickly exit to the living room.
Julie Louise Paris looks as out of place sitting down on the cheap blue upholstered couch with her three thousand dollar shoes on a fifty dollar rug as she did standing on my doorstep. She crosses her legs artfully, and those mossy green eyes land on me with a burning, single-minded intensity.
